


Lion and the Black Cats

by MalevolentKing



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sword Art Online
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 14:20:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12110583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalevolentKing/pseuds/MalevolentKing
Summary: This is an alternate universe where magic doesn't exist. Harry is Han Sakamoto, screen name BWL (pronounced Bail). He's friends with the Black Cats in real life and they don't die.





	Lion and the Black Cats

**Author's Note:**

> Italics are messages, calls, objectives, and anything else game related  
> Bold is boss names

Han and his friends were sitting in the computer club room during lunch. He was sitting next to Ryuu and Osamu laughing at the antics of Hikaru. The aforementioned energetic teenager was jumping around and crying out in happiness because the VRMMO Sword Art Online is going to be released in two days. Sachi was smiling slightly and Keita was shaking his head in exasperation, but he too was smiling. The group of friends certainly were excited because they had wanted to join the beta testing. They didn't get to, although one of the lower years did get in. A ringing settled through the school announcing lunch was over. Hikaru sighed and put on his red and gold jacket, adjusted his totally-against-the-rules grey beanie, and brushed the bangs of his chin length dirty blonde hair out his eyes.

Keita, Ryuu, Osamu, and Han put there red and gold jackets on as well. All five boys all had their ties loose so as not to die of strangulation. That didn't sound like a fun way to go. Sachi rolled her sleeves up a little and the computer club gathered their school stuff and walked to class, each depositing their lunch bags in the trash on the way out. Han slowed down and walked beside the only girl of the group and threw his arm around her shoulder, she blushed slightly and looked away. Hikaru was animatedly discussing guild names for SAO with Keita, Osamu and Ryuu were looking on in amusement, and Sachi and Han were talking about SAO themselves, albeit far more reserved then the blonde ball of energy that is Hikaru.

The group went through the day as normal. Only one thing was different, they were impatiently waiting the day of Sunday, November, 6th, 2022. None of them could wait, the suspense was driving them insane. Hikaru and Keita finally figured out a name, so the former created a group text with all their usual screen names. They drifted through the rest of the day and all of Saturday, when I became time for the group to go to the game store and their copy of SAO.

_Ducker: Guys, hurry up and meet me at the park, we're not gonna make it!_

_Keita: Relax, Hikaru. We'll make it. We're only waiting on Ryuu right now anyway._

_Tetsuo: Hey! I take_ _offense to that!_

_Sasamaru: Even if it's true?_

_Ducker: Ryuu stop texting and hurry!_

_BWL: Seriously I agree with Keita, I think we all need to relax. There can't be 10,000 people there already._

_Keita: Thank you Han!_

_BWL: Oh but of course, fearless leader._

_Sachi: How much is the game?_

_Sasamaru: It's about 7000 yen, I think._

When Ryuu came riding around the corner on his bike the other five breathed a sigh of relief. The group rode off. Hikaru yelled at him the whole way there, whilst Ryuu kept apologizing. Han shook his head and just kept going. 

"Do you think it's packed?" the blonde asked when they finally arrived.

"No way. It can't be." Osamu said while shaking his head, his long and wavy hair following the movement.

Sure enough, there was plenty of room. They got their copies along with an auburn haired guy named Ryoutarou Tsuboi, they got their picture taken and hurried home as fast as they possibly could. Han ran into his godfather, Sirius Kuro, on his way up to his room.

"Woah, pup, cool your jets. What's got you in such a rush?" his godfather asked.

See he lives with his godfather because his parents died when he was young. They both had a illness called 'Avada Kedavra' which is a disease with no known cure. There has only been one survivor; him.

The illness was apparently genetic and both his parents had it as well as bad luck. Han is the only known survivor. Nobody knows how he did it, but he did. Anyway, his godfather was he dads best friend. His father was part of a group of pranksters. The members were Jirou Sakamoto (his father), Sirius Kuro, Raiden Tsuki, and Uragi Rimono. Raiden also had a condition where he went into a coma like state three days of every month, and always near the full moon. Sirius spent some time in jail because he was framed for murder. He got out two years ago because they finally gave him a trail, so that gave him an opportunity to live with him instead of his mother's sister, Pechunia Deguchi and her husband, Seiuchi Deguchi and their son, Tasukete Deguchi.

Han found that to be a blessing because they abused him every chance they could get. They only fed him the bare minimum of food, his Uncle Seiuchi whipped him with his belt, Tasukete would play Han Hunting with his friends and made sure Han never had friends, Pechunia spread rumors across the neighborhood, and they kept him in the cupboard under the stairs and worked him like a slave. He was brought out of his musings by his godfather waving his hand in front of his face.

"Sorry, Sirius. But me and the Cats got SAO today and I need to go set it up!" Han explained.

Sirius chuckled slightly, "Go on then, pup. Don't let me keep you."

Han hugged Sirius and ran up towards his room. When he got up there he set up his NerveGear and sat anxiously watching the clock. He almost shit his pants when his cell phone rang. The name read Hikaru Dezaki. He answered it and put it on speaker phone.

"Hey, Hikaru why're you cal-"

 _"Don't call me that! Get into character BWL!"_ demanded the energetic blonde.

"Oh, sorry then, Ducker," he said adding emphasis on his screen name, "now as I was going to ask. Why are you calling me? We're about to dive any minute now."

 _"I just want to check if you calibrated your NerveGear."_ he said.

"Shit!" cried Han.

 _"See? Aren't you glad you have me now BWL?"_ asked Hikaru, with a hint of mischief in his voice.

"Up yours, Ducker." he said.

The blonde just laughed and hung up. Han went through the whole calibration sequence with three minutes to spare. He saw his black lab/pit bull mix, Padfoot sitting in the corner with his head tilted curiously. The dog walked over to him, jumped up on the bed, sniffed the NerveGear, then gave out a low growl, after which he laid down next to him. Then looked at him as if to say 'this is for your protection, bro' and put his head on lap. He absentmindedly rubbed the dogs head and waited until the clock hit 1:00. When it finally did he kissed the dog on the head, laid back, and smirked. Then said the magic words that changed his life, "Link Start!"

Right after he said that, there was a bright flash of light. It went through all the system setups and then brought him to the character creator. He chose male for a gender, adjusted his height little bit, lengthened his hair to shoulder length, and finally chose to wield a war axe. Han didn't want to change his eye color, because frankly that's his favorite thing about himself. The emerald color is the best thing for him. He spawned into the center of town. It took a little getting used to as he wasn't accustomed to it but, eventually he got it.

He started looking around for his friends, he would yet out the code word and if he heard the other code phrase he'd run towards it. Ducker spent a lot of time working on that system, it proved to work out well, although people looked at them weird when one yelled 'Lion!' and the other yelled 'Pride!', but they didn't pay attention to that. The six of them set out to hunt for a while, and hunt they did. They eventually lost track of time and went to log out at 5:30, except it didn't work out that way. Instead of logging out they got teleported to the center of the Town of Beginnings. While they were still confused and looking around a dome formed out of red hexagonal shapes. Each shape of the dome was flashing with the same thing; 'WARNING' and 'System Announcement'.

The blood formed into a figure in a hooded robe. The robe showed no face only shadow. Sachi whimpered and curled into BWL's side. Ducker, Sasamaru, and Tetsuo tried to get out but the exit was blocked by a force field. All throughout that Keita was shocked.

The hooded figure spread its arms wide and spoke. "Attention players." Its voice was loud and majestic, befitting the size of the figure. Han assumed it was the GM talking to the concerned players. "I welcome you to my world."

"My... world..?" Keita muttered.

Han's eyes widened as he realized the implications, "My name is Akihiko Kayaba, and as of this moment, I am in control of this world." Everyone assembled let out a gasp of shock, "I'm sure most of you have already noticed an item missing from your main menus – the log out buttons." His shoulders relaxed slightly, hoping to hear him say something along the lines of 'This is being addressed' or 'I will log you out now and we will restart servers when the issue is fixed.'

His next words, however, crushed that small bit of hope. Kayaba's large figure open up its menu screen as it spoke, "Let me assure you, this is not a defect in the game. I repeat, this is not a defect. This is how Sword Art Online was designed to be."

Sachi had curled up into his side even more at that reveal and she let out a whimper. It was as if the whole world had stopped for the emerald eyed teen, and nothing else mattered to him right at that moment. All that mattered was that Sachi was okay. So he wrapped the shy girl up in a hug and didn't let go.

He started glaring at the GM as he continued. "You cannot log yourselves out of SAO. And no one from the outside will be able to shut down or remove the NerveGear from your head." There went the only option they had left. His mind seemed to be running in circles, never being able to break out of the loop of despair. "If anyone attempts to do so, a transmitter inside the NerveGear will discharge a microwave signal into your skull, destroying your brain and ending your life." His calm manner of speaking was entirely dissonant to the words he said. He would speak about a small animal eating food the same way he talked about killing them. The man was clearly a psychopath.

"No, this.. this.. this is nuts! It's gotta be some kinda joke?" pleaded Ducker.

Kayaba continued speaking. "Despite my warning, the families and friends of some of the players have tried removing the NerveGear. An unfortunate decision, to say the least." No one wanted to hear what he said next, but his calm voice continued speaking with no way to stop listening. "As a result, the game now has 213 less players than when it began. They've been deleted from both Aincrad and the real world."

Sasamaru and Tetsuo gasped.

"213?! There's no way!" Keita yelled.

As if hearing his words, screens appeared and started circling the GM. "As you can see, international media outlets have round-the-clock coverage of everything, including the deaths." Han stared at the screens, searching for a familiar space, and found one unfortunately, he found a feed of the paramedics bringing his body out on a stretcher and Sirius looking downright murderous, "At this point, it's safe to assume the likelihood of a NerveGear being removed is minimal at best." Kayaba continued, "I hope this brings you a little comfort as you try to clear the game."

"Clear the game?" Sachi mumbled into his side.

Everyon listened to Kayaba's next words with baited breath. "It's important to remember the following: there is no longer any way to revive someone within the game; if your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be deleted from the system… forever." If anyone had looked over at Han they would've noticed he was glaring angrily at the hooded figure. "And the NerveGear will simultaneously destroy your brain."

These next words were important. "There is only one way for a player to escape now; you must clear the game." He pressed a button, and a holographic image appeared with a red dot on the bottom. "Right now, you're gathered on floor one, the lowest level of Aincrad. If you can get through the dungeon and defeat the boss, you may advance to the next floor." The holographic image flushed red from bottom to top. "Defeat the boss on floor 100, and you will clear the game."

One voice rang out amongst the sea of murmurs that was the crowd, "We can't clear all 100 floors. That's freaking impossible. Even the beta testers never made it that far!"

Silencing all muttering, Kayaba raised his hand. "Last, but not least, I've placed a little present in the item storage of each player. Please, have a look." Han furrowed his brow, confused, but opened his my inventory anyway. Inside was a single item, a Hand Mirror. He pulled it out, and it was just a mirror. It reflected his image.

Nothing happened for about 10 seconds then all of a sudden the pavilion was filled with bright light. Standing in the place of all the avatars were the real people behind them. 

Sachi started sobbing, "Why? Why is this happening to us?"

Han rubbed her back reassuringly and whispered comforting things in her ears. She eventually calmed down enough to stop sobbing, she was still sniffling though.

"Right now, you're probably wondering, 'Why?' 'Why would Akihiko Kayaba, developer of Sword Art Online and NerveGear, do this?' Ultimately, my goal was a simple one. The reason I created Sword Art Online was to control the fate of a world of my design." The man was insane. That had to be the only explanation; he had no possible idea what he was doing.

Kayaba continued. "As you can see, I have achieved my goal. This marks the end of the tutorial, and the official launch of Sword Art Online. Players, I wish you the best of luck." The image of the GM seemed to corrupt and dissolve into smoke. Any remnants of that strange red liquid were quickly reabsorbed into the cracks of the red hexagons, leaving the sky clear.

Everyone was silent and motionless, stunned into silence by the ultimatum delivered by the creator of the game we were playing. No, not game; it was a new reality. They were trapped in this game by a brilliant madman, and to escape they had to fight their way out. Somewhere in the crowd, a mirror shattered. A girl screamed, and general panic set in. People rushed forward, trying to escape the mad man's twisted game. This dream had become a nightmare. Many players just collapsed, unable to bear the thought of dying. Near the exits, a nearly imperceptible glimmer meant that the barriers blocking exit had lifted. He snapped at of his stupor, picked Sachi up bridal style and nodded towards the exit. Ducker grabbed the still shocked Keita and dragged him along.


End file.
